Biblical Myths and Legends

 

This is my entry in the Once Upon A Time Blogathon hosted by Hometowns to Hollywood.

Some people are "literalists" when it comes to the Bible.  God created the universe and the Earth in seven days. It says seven days in the Bible, so it means seven days. It also says that Noah and his wife and his children built an ark and loaded up 2* of every animal on Earth and survived the holocaust of a world-wide flood that destroyed the rest of the living creatures on Earth. No question about it.  The Bible says it, so it must be true.

(*Note: The Bible actually says at one point that Noah was to take 7 of every clean animal and 2 of every unclean animal.) 

Of course, by taking this view, they have to ignore the fact that scientific evidence takes a different tach on the history of the Earth.  Instead of being 6000 some odd years old, science seems to indicate that it is millions of years old. If that is true, does it negate any spiritual significance of the essence of the Bible? My personal opinion is that you can take the first part of Genesis (everything leading up to the introduction of Abraham) as allegorical and still not diminish the spiritual message. 

For it's part, the In Search Of... episodes covered here do not dispute that those events did not happen. In fact, in two of them, the focus is that the producers of the series are actually trying to find the location of the places mentioned in the Biblical passages (The Garden of Eden and Sodom and Gomorrah). In the third episode the theme is trying to determine whether or not a worldwide flood actually happened.

As the prologue of the series states: This series presents information in part in theory and conjecture. The producers purpose is to suggest some possible explanations, but not necessarily the only ones to the mysteries we will examine.  In essence, it meant that they were approaching each subject with an open mind, not giving credence to or disparaging any viewpoint. 

In Search Of... was a regular part of my life back in the late '70's.  As a young man in my late teens and early twenties I was fascinated by such things as cryptozoological creatures (Bigfoot, The Loch Ness Monster) and the possibility of extraterrestrials either coming to Earth or already here. (Still am, to some extent, although 40 to 50 years of not having been presented with incontrovertible evidence to prove such stuff has made me a bit more skeptical.)

In case you are interested, each section below includes the episode covered. 

In Search Of...

The Garden of Eden- (original airdate June 1, 1978):

Two people who got along pretty well until there came someone else to break up the relationship.

The episode opens with host Leonard Nimoy giving the standard background of the Biblical story of God casting out Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, then gives a teaser about a remote island that has one solitary tree growing on it.  The tree is called "The Tree of Life" by the natives.  Is this the tree of the Biblical legend?

For those of you not familiar with the Biblical Garden of Eden and it's supposed location, not to worry.  Host Lenard Nimoy gives a brief description.  There was a river flowing out of the Garden that created other rivers and these were the Tigris, the Euphrathes, the Pishon and the Gihon. The problem is, although we know today where the Tigris and the Euphrates are, the locations of the other two are not known: at least by the names listed in the narrative.

But scholars think the Gihon may have been the ancient name for the Nile. There are some ancient beliefs concerning the Nile.  According to history, the Egyptians thought of the Nile as a god.  If the Nile is indeed the Gihon in the Biblical legend, then it remains to be found only the Pishon.

Thus, the producers introduce the island nation of Bahrain.  Bahrain has been an oasis in a desert in more ways than one.  It is a land where pearls re as plentiful as dates, and an underground river provides water where for most of the area it is a rarity.  Could that underground river be the lost river Pishon?

As usual with In Search Of ..., the producers make no concrete statements, only suggestions of the possibilities.  And, of course, no trace of the Biblical Garden of Eden is presented at the end.  But that is the essence of the popularity in my mind of the series; just to get you thinking about those possibilities.

Noah's Flood- (original airdate February 8, 1979):

Noah has many other "contemporaries, but he got all the press.

Did the flood of the Bible actually happen?  And if it did where is the remains of this fantastic ship that did the trick of keeping the Earth populated after that? The Bible claims that God destroyed the Earth in order to wipe out the offending citizenry and start all over with one family.

The episode delves into scientific evidence that a flood may have happened. As Nimoy states in the opening sequence "no legend has survived as much skepticism". as such, there are interviews with detractors who are certain that the Earth is much older than Biblical historians would have you believe.

But there also so-called "Christian scientists", like Dr. Henry Morris, who believe that evidence exists that a worldwide Flood happened relatively recently (recently as in with the last 10,000 years).  Also delved into is an 1870 discovery of some old Cuneiform tablets that mention a man named Utnashpitim, who some believe may be another name for Noah.

In defense of the theory that the flood actually happened, the producers present the fact that nearly every culture in the world has it's own world wide flood narrative. Of course, as in the case of one Native American legend, the hero that saved mankind to repopulate the Earth did it with a canoe.  (That must've been one BIG canoe...)

The producers also present the fact that some wood was found at the top of Mount Ararat (the supposed resting place of the Ark, according to the Biblical legend) that was carbon dated to about 10,000 years ago, and it is wood not normally found in that region.

The episode ends with Nimoy stating that if the Ark were found tomorrow, believers would say I told you so, but skeptics would still dismiss it.  It remains a rather touchy subject, obviously...

Sodom & Gomorrah- (original airdate May 10, 1979):

And after that, Lot never asked anyone to "please pass the salt"...

The Biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah is typical of the sometimes vindictive God as He is portrayed in the Old Testament. As previously noted in the second episode of this blog entry, He destroyed the entire world and started from scratch because the people would not live according to His precepts.  In the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the wrath of the Creator once again reared it's ugly side and rained down fire and brimstone on two cities that were so morally corrupt they make Las Vegas look like a Bible camp.

There was an archaeological dig that went on for 12 years in a region near the Dead Sea that produced no real results, that is until the 13th year of the dig when a piece of the puzzle was unearthed that confirmed that Sodom and Gomorrah did indeed exist at one time.  But it's location remained a mystery.

One of the things that came out in the episode was a theory that a monumental earthquake could have produced the results that ended up with the dual cities' destruction.  And one of the theories presented was that maybe they were located very near the Dead Sea, but the evidence is now underwater.

Another legend among the bedouin tribes is that there is a pillar of salt near the region that locals believe is actually Lot's wife. According to the Biblical legend, God told Lot and his family to leave, and to not look back, but Lot's wife disobeyed and was turned into a pillar of salt for her indiscretion.

As usual the episode ends with no clear cut possibility to the solution, but then, that's what made In Search Of... so appealing. No answers one way or another, just speculations, leaving the viewer to make their own conclusions.

So I hope you enjoyed this look into potential solutions to mysteries that remain shrouded by the depths of history.  And maybe, just maybe, I piqued your interest enough to check out other episodes.

Quiggy